04:38 PM Belated Merry Christmas, Advanced Happy New Year
I hope you had a great Christmas; I did! Ü I wasn't able to follow up my "Christmas Countdown" post because our telephone line went on the fritz that same Christmas Eve. There was a positive side to this: I was able to spend less time on the computer and more time with my (extended) family.

Normally, the four of us in our nuclear family rattle around in our house like a piggy bank with too few coins in it; last December 24 that all changed when my mother's brothers and sisters came to visit and stay over. When I say "brothers and sisters" I don't mean just those people; necessarily they bring their spouses and children as well. That amounts to over 20 people. Thankfully our family isn't too concerned with logistics, since we all crammed into a much smaller house last Christmas and managed to survive. Ü

My maternal grandparents couldn't make it out of Bacolod to come to Manila this year, so I did the honor of being Santa(baby) that evening after midnight, announcing the giver of a gift before handing a present over to the loved one. I also broke my diet because a piece of "Chocolate Decadence" called out to me.

In two days, those relatives of mine will also be here with us to celebrate the New Year. What fun! I'm blessed to have such loving relatives.

But speaking of relatives, my paternal grandmother's sister died on Christmas Day. She had been going senile for some years, and after a stroke this year she was confined to lying in a bed. I know she's resting with the Lord now, free from her pain. My father recalled all her sacrifices: she never married and devoted herself to running their family's pharmacy to help support my grandparents when they were raising their family. I think that my father was relieved that she had finally been eased from her suffering, although he was very sad that day.

That gives me one New Year's resolution to make: love my family more, and myself less.

12:14 AM Christmas Countdown
Strange but true: my family waits until the last ten seconds before midnight strikes to say "Merry Christmas!" and have our noche buena feast. It's just like the ball dropping in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

So the countdown starts!

01:52 PM Return of the King

A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!
silivren penna míriel
o menel aglar elenath,
Gilthoniel, A! Elbereth!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
The starlight on the Western Seas.
--Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Chapter 9 (The Grey Havens)

I've got tickets for today's advanced screening! Thank you Lord! Ü

10:36 AM The Bold, the Beautiful, & the Bomb
I must confess! For the past three weeks, I was hooked on reruns of a soap opera called The Bold and the Beautiful. Oh have mercy on me! Ü Thankfully, the cheesiness of it all got to me, and I dumped the habit faster than you could say "Ridge Forrester."

And it was just in time to attend the Lantern Parade yesterday, which was also webcast live. You know what? I've been attending that Parade for six years, and I have always been amazed at the work people are willing to put into making their floats, choreographing dance steps (the otso-otso and spageti steps sure are popular this year), and even gussying up in costumes (or lack of costumes, in the case of a certain org).

There was something different about this Lantern Parade, though; I don't know if anyone noticed it, but I did. It seemed dead: paraders weren't that jazzed up, stalwarts College of Fine Arts and College of Architecture didn't outdo themselves (sorry CFA and Arki peeps), and there wasn't that feeling of Carnival that accompanied previous Parades.

Added to that, I was working during the Parade. My sister had been assigned by her Speech class to cover the festivities. With tape recorder, notebook, and ballpen in hand, both of us were probably too absorbed trying to announce which floats were coming, trying to describe them. We weren't really living the Parade; we were observers removed from events.

Next year, Noelle, it'll be all play and no work, promise.

10:48 PM Happy Talk
It's only Monday but I think I'm having a really good week. Ü

After getting a bad grade from my first graded assignment in Investigative Journ, incurring possible minus points in my Media Ethics quiz, and botching my first oral report in Creative Writing, I am finally being given a break. I think I did well today in Journ, since my latest assignment has been graded and returned to me with an unexpectedly spectacular grade (thank you Lord!). Both Creative Writing and Media Ethics will not be holding classes this week, which spares me any further grief, and I think I may actually be learning from those mistakes I made. See you in January, my dear teachers. I hope my good week extends into a good rest-of-the-semester.

In related perky news, for the second consecutive time I'll be missing the streaking boys of Palma Hall tomorrow (a.k.a. the Oblation Run). I'd rather not put myself in the way of fainting freshies and experienced seniors, and besides I already have my souvenirs from the first Oblation Run I ever attended. I have the tags from the roses the excited runners handed me as they passed; one of the nekkid dudes even pinched my cheek. (A thought occurred to me at that time: where have their hands been?) So you see, anything that may happen to me this year if I attend said event will definitely pale in comparison.

The event I'm waiting for to close this year is the Lantern Parade. I still don't know if I'm going to stand by as an observer or march with my college's delegation. Not attending it would be unthinkable, especially when I'm thisclose to the campus.

09:57 AM One-Way Dislike
I once hurt a guy, and I know why. I didn't like him.

We were both applicants to a college-based organization for PolSci majors. He was a junior, and I was a freshman. I didn't bear any animosity toward him at first; I may be easily irritated, but I don't hold grudges normally. I suppose from the moment we met he just rubbed me the wrong way, because one morning a short while after I first met him I woke from a dream in which I was angrily trying to slap him.

Meanwhile, we had become orgmates and by the next semester he was a classmate of mine. I'd get a cold sinking feeling every time I encountered him (possibly a holdover from that terrible dream of mine). I tried to make those instances few, short, and far between, but he was always around, even when I obviously didn't want to be around him. Why is that? I'd ask myself after a particularly long conversation with him and other orgmates. (Long meant more than thirty seconds, in his case.)

For instance, I was once putting up posters for the org on our home building's bulletin boards when he popped up and offered to help. I had several bulletin boards left but didn't want his help, and I told him so. Repeatedly. Over and over again. I felt like a broken record, but he just wouldn't leave me alone.

So I punished him. I Speedy Gonzales'd the process, running the flights of stairs between bulletin boards and powering across floors from one wing of the building to the other. I'd hear him pounding the pavement behind me, which only made me run faster. (Why he even tried keeping up with me puzzles me to this day.) You could say I was trying to lose him.

Over the semester, though, he made it increasingly more difficult to avoid him. At the same time I began to hear rumors about a blooming courtship within our org, and I wondered who it involved and why I was the last to hear about it. One morning it became clear why he had dogged me so. A bouquet of carnations and sunflowers from him awaited me.

Being confronted with something like that was far beyond my wildest nightmares. Then again, my dream had pre-dated this ultimatum by several months. I'd never had any inclination for the guy. Maybe it was his looks (not my type); maybe it was because he smelled of some strange sickly sweet/spicy perfume that I did not take a liking to. The mere thought of him as a suitor turned my stomach, but there he was asking if he could do that very same thing!

I turned him down flatly and coldly, raining--no, hailing--on his parade. He had actually asked everyone in the org about courting me, and though my friends among them strongly dissuaded him from pursuing that course of action, others may have encouraged him. He sent about two lovelorn letters my way, but I ripped them apart and burned each piece carefully so there would be no traces left. With a little effort and a lot of help from my friends, I was able to avoid him completely.

The semesters passed, and he graduated. I learned that after he had tried to court me, he'd courted my girl friends but had been busted every time. After that piece of information, a year passed before I heard anything about him again. One of my best male friends, Robert, was walking with me to another building. He had been present during the whole fiasco but had never gotten around to asking me about it.

"I turned him down because I wasn't interested in a relationship," I told Robert. "I'm still not interested."

Robert looked thoughtful as we proceeded down the tree-lined road. "He assumed that since you two were best friends you wouldn't turn him down. Or at least you would consider it."

A flash of red blurred my vision, and my blood began to boil. Best friends? My "admirer" had completely misread the HANDS OFF signal I had been broadcasting at him with my behavior. Not only that, he'd told everyone in the org that we had a pretty good friendship going! That was just twisted and evil.

I boiled over. I wanted to curl up in a cold corner and sulk--or maybe just hit something. I turned away from Robert and socked a helpless innocent tree with my fist.

Poor tree.

02:45 PM Amor Proprio
I figure I should milk this present layout for what it's worth before I replace it. I do have a new layout already finished,but that can wait until January. After all, most of my layouts are up for two months (or more... sometimes Ü).

Don't you think constant redesign is just a way of calling attention to oneself? For me it was, in my early days of website design. A new layout trumpeted "I exist! Look at me!" Getting compliments made me feel warm all over: unless there's something wrong with you, you'd get that too if I told you your site was "da bomb!"

Unfortunately that sense of well-being doesn't last long (it lasts about as long as people keep sending compliments your way), and before you know it you're looking to get another fix.

Don't get me wrong; there's always a feeling of accomplishment that one rightly gets when a new layout is done, and you can't go wrong with a fresh new look. All I'm saying is that nothing should compel a person to redesign if there's no need to. What defines need? Well, in my case, boredom and/or nausea when I look at my site. Ü

11:38 PM Shout-Outs
I'd like to point out some new links to other people's ramblings online:
Black Maria
Brookelyn
Carlo Lopez
Eric Alba
Sparticus
Starbucks... For Free
T.J.
Vanessa

I'm doing this because I'm currently redesigning for Christmas but still haven't churned out a new layout. Hence, the above list is something for you to pass the time.